Chinese Churches on the Rise?
A Short Analysis of Churches in Mainland China
Rev Raymond Lo (China Ministry Director of FEBC)
From 2008 to 2009, the World Religion Research Unit of the Chinese Social Science College conducted a nation-wide sampling survey on religion of Chinese households and published the results in the “Chinese Religions Report 2011” on 14th January, 2011. Although this report may not give a comprehensive view of the situation of the family churches, the statistics and analysis are enough for us to learn about the churches in mainland China.
According to the survey report, the total number of Christians in China comprises of 1.8% of the total population in China, adding up to about 23.05 million people. These official statistics indicate that the number of people in the churches in China has increased 22 times over the past 60 years from the 1 million in 1949! The statistics also shows that there were only about 10 million Christians in 1996, meaning that there was an increase of about 1 million Christians per year at churches in China over the past 13 years! Quantity-wise, we have no doubt that churches in China are doing very well. However, if we look at the quality, the situation of these churches is worrisome. They certainly require lots of our attention, care and prayers. To make it short, I will only discuss the following three areas: Christian believers, pastors and churches; and examine their needs.
1. Quality Growth for Christians Urgently Needed
Over half of the Christians in China have never finished elementary school education. About 32.7% Christians have finished high school. Only 2.6% Christians have completed college or higher education. Moreover, 68.8% Christians said that they believe in God because either they themselves or a family member has been sick. So, low education level and weak foundation in faith are very common in the churches in China. For these reasons, it shows that Christians need quality growth and nurturing urgently; on the other hand, it explains why churches in rural area become the hotbeds for heresy.
Among churchgoers in China, 73.7% are 45 years old or over; more than 25% are 65 years old or over; and only 4.3% are 24 years old or under. Besides, female Christians (70%) far outnumber male Christians. Again, these situations are common in churches in China. Some elderly sisters are still the main support of the churches, so there is an urgent need of nurturing young people to take over from the seniors. We hope to have more and more male Christians serving in churches in China.
2. Training Church Pastors a Priority
According to the number given by the Chinese Christian representatives visiting Hong Kong and Macau, the total number of clergy (pastors, assistant pastors, elders, preachers) is about 37 000, of which only about 3700 are pastors and assistant pastors. With 23.05 million Christians in the country, this means that each clergy person needs to serve 623 Christians. Moreover, on average, there is only one pastor to 6230 Christians! The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There is an urgent need for a great number of pastoral workers to lead the churches in China and to nurture the believers.
3. Planting Churches, Preaching Gospel
According to the survey, 71.7% of all the Christians are living in the east and middle part of China. But Christians in the southwest and south part of China only constitute 3.8% and 1.6% respectively. As a result, we can see that Christians in China are distributed unevenly. They mainly concentrated in the east part and along the Yangtze River area. In addition, based on the estimated ratio of number of Christians per church, each church or gospel meeting place in China will have to pastor 419 Christians. According to the statistics mentioned above, there are lots of room to build more churches in China. By planting more churches, it not only spreads the Gospel to places that have few Christians, but also reduces the number of people to be ministered to at each church. The end result will improve the quality of pastoral care, ensuring better education and service for the believers.
Resource: http://www.febccm.org/Common/Reader/News/ShowNews.jsp?Nid=162&Pid=1&Version=0&Cid=3&Charset=iso-8859-1
